Case Number 20921: Small Claims Court

THE WINDMILL MOVIE

The Charge

"What if someone took the images of your life and made a film?"

The Case

Richard P. Rogers was an experimental and documentary filmmaker who came from
a wealthy family in the Hamptons and rose to some acclaim and a professorship at
the prestigious Harvard department of Visual and Environmental Studies. Despite
his relative success as a filmmaker and teacher, Rogers' death at the age of 57
precluded him from finishing his mammoth autobiographical film. The plan was for
this film to encompass everything from his childhood as the scion of a wealthy
family, to his relationship with his overbearing mother, up through his various
(and variously entangled) relationships. Though Rogers never finished the film,
indeed did not know how to finish the film, two hundred hours of footage was
left extant, and one of his students, Alexander Olch took on the task of
compiling the material into a documentary feature, The Windmill
Movie.

We have little, if any, idea of how Richard P. Rogers would have finished
his opus. His footage and diaries reveal that he was struggling with both the
film and his relationships enough that it's doubtful that he could have signed
off on a completed film. In some ways, then, it's lucky that Olch stepped in to
accomplish what Rogers couldn't. From the two hundred hours, Olch pulls together
a representative chronology, reading some of Rogers' own intended narration over
early parts of the film, and switching to excerpts from Rogers' diaries (as
voluminous as his footage, apparently) for later footage. The Windmill
Movie is also, to a certain extent, a film about making a film. The first
part introduces Rogers and talks about his uncompleted film; from there we see
that Rogers had friends in the movie industry who are willing to help finish the
film. Wallace Shawn (known to most fans either for his role in The Princess
Bride as the scheming Vizzini, or from My Dinner with Andre) steps up
and contributes some dramatic interpretations from Rogers' diaries most
prominently.

The Windmill Movie has undeniable artistic pedigree: Harvard
professor, uncompleted magnum opus, a privileged upbringing abandoned to do
create experimental and documentary films. The question, then, is how does the
film work as a documentary or biography? Surprisingly, considering it was culled
from so much footage and not even the filmmaker was sure how to make it work,
the film feels whole and presents a multifaceted portrait of a main both brash
and vulnerable. Initially it might seem hard for most audiences to sympathize
with a man with an upbringing and profession like Rogers', Olch doesn't
whitewash Rogers' insecurities, nor does he paint him as a victim of
circumstance. Instead, what emerges is a man struggling to deal with the
overbearing weight of expectation, never quite satisfied with what he has, and
always searching for a new means of expression.

The meta-documentary aspects of the film are also really interesting. This
is a film where director Olch sifts through a documentary shot by Rogers (who
was, to be fair, Olch's teacher). The narration takes on a personal, almost
confessional tone as Olch switches to Rogers' diaries, and the debt to fellow
Harvard filmmaker Ross McElwee is much more obvious. In fact, McElwee's personal
excavation in Bright Leaves, as well as that film's use of sources
outside the usual documentary style, seems to shape The Windmill Movie.
The narration also sounds, at times, like something Bret Easton Ellis would
write, and the dry tones of Olch's voice lend a certain equanimity to Rogers'
passionate entries.

Sourced from numerous places, from 8mm footage to then-cutting edge video,
The Windmill Movie looks surprisingly of a piece on DVD. The transfer is
generally strong, with not serious compression or artefacting problem. The
surround audio track keeps the narration front and center, though there are
occasional moments of directionality. Subtitles are offered to make sure that
some of the conversations captured with lesser fidelity are still
intelligible.

The main extra on the disc is a pair of short films by Rogers. The first,
"Elephants: Fragments of an Argument" runs about 25 minutes long, and
includes an assemblage of diverse materials into a dreamlike collage. The other
film is "226-1690" (also known as "The Answering Machine
Movie"), and runs 27 minutes long, with answering machine messages played
over footage captured in the city. Housed in the DVD case is an essay by Scott
Foundas on the film.

Biographical films, especially those that take on a subject who dies young
(Rogers was killed by cancer at 57), are generally sad. The Windmill
Movie is no exception. Knowing that Rogers died before finishing the film,
and putting the demons it represents entirely to rest, makes watching the movie
a somewhat wistful experience. Potential viewers should also know that Rogers
was not shy about including nudity (male and female) in his films, so there's a
bit of that on display. It's not anything like the majority of the film, but
sensitive viewers should be appraised.

The Windmill Movie is a fascinating look at one man's life through a
film that might have been. Although it can a slightly sad experience, the film
is worth watching for fans of personal documentaries and experimental
cinema.

The Verdict

It would be quixotic to suggest that The Windmill Movie is anything
but not guilty.